“So soon?” said Ali, looking at his long-lost bed with affectionate interest.
“That depends on you. Travellers like to carry away some little remembrance of places they have visited, and I have too much reason to be pleased with my treatment here not to keep up the custom. What do you advise me to get? You see, you must aid me in choosing, for I haven’t stirred out, and know nothing about the place.”
“Our grapes are very fine here in the north of Spain. Possibly——”
“No. That won’t do. I want something that will keep.”
“The young girls of our country come from ten leagues round to Alagon to buy plated gold and silver trinkets, and necklaces of seed-pearl and coral.”
“You must find out something better than that.”
“Your worship puzzles me. The country has nothing else remarkable to offer except its inhabitants; but, of course, I could not offer you one of our people to take away.”
“That’s a notion! It suggests an idea to me—only it is so peculiar I hardly like to mention it.”
“Pshaw! a little shyness will soon wear off.”
“I’ll give you a thousand guesses, and you’ll puzzle your brains over it in vain to all eternity.”